"Dishy…with a Smiths soundtrack [and] a Sedaris streak." —Brian Howe, INDY Week“A gifted writer, Anderson is…delightful in his irreverence, and astutely aware of himself and his particular perspective. His observations are often laugh-out-loud funny and will leave readers with the desire to…keep turning the pages…” —Publishers Weekly review for Anderson, author of Tune in Tokyo and Sweet ToothWhat's a sweets-loving young boy growing up gay in North Carolina in the eighties supposed to think when he's diagnosed with type 1 diabetes? That God is punishing him, naturally.This was, after all, when gay-hating Jesse Helms was his senator, AIDS was still the boogeyman, and no one was saying, “It gets better.” And if stealing a copy of a gay porno magazine from the newsagent was a sin, then surely what the men inside were doing to one another was much worse.Sweet Tooth is Tim Anderson's uproarious memoir of life after his hormones and blood sugar both went berserk at the age of fifteen. With Morrissey and The Smiths as the soundtrack, Anderson self-deprecatingly recalls love affairs with vests and donuts, first crushes, coming out, and inaugural trips to gay bars. What emerges is the story of a young man trying to build a future that won't involve crippling loneliness or losing a foot to his disease—and maybe even one that, no matter how unpredictable, can still be pretty sweet.

Everyone wants to escape their boring, stagnant lives full of inertia and regret. But so few people actually have the bravery to run, run away from everything and selflessly seek out personal fulfillment on the other side of the world where they don't understand anything and won't be expected to. The world is full of cowards. Tim Anderson was pushing thirty and working a string of dead-end jobs when he made the spontaneous decision to pack his bags and move to Japan,?where my status as a U.S. passport holder and card-carrying?American English? speaker was an asset rather than a liability.? It was a gutsy move, especially for a tall, white, gay Southerner who didn?t speak a lick of Japanese. But his life desperately needed a shot of adrenaline, and what better way to get one than to leave behind everything he had ever known to move to?a tiny, overcrowded island heaving with clever, sensibly proportioned people that make him look fat In Tokyo, Tim became a?gaijin,? an outsider whose stumbling progression through Japanese culture is minutely chronicled in these sixteen howlingly funny stories. Yet despite the steep learning curve and the seemingly constant humiliation, the gaijin from North Carolina gradually begins to find his way. Whether playing drums on the fly in an otherwise all-Japanese noise band or attempting to keep his English classroom clean when it's invaded by an older female student with a dirty mind, Tim comes to realize that living a meaningful life is about expecting the unexpected?right when he least expects it.